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...powerful teachers' unions, however, the idea that their jobs could hinge on a set of standardized-test results is anathema, in part because many teachers believe the tests are unreliable indicators of student performance. "Our disappointment is clear," says Kay Brilliant, director of education policy and practice for the National Educators Association, the nation's largest teachers' union. "If it's going to be more of the same, more NCLB [No Child Left Behind], more testing and minimal support, then we're not interested." Duncan admits he is tackling the Everest of entrenched interests with this particular reform...
...School, a rigorous K-12 program that led him to Harvard. There he graduated magna cum laude while maintaining his obsession with basketball, co-captaining the team his senior year. After college and a failed tryout with the Boston Celtics, Duncan flew to Australia to play in that nation's professional basketball league. He stayed for four years, playing ball, working with foster kids and eventually meeting his wife Karen...
...good grades, experimenting with teacher merit pay and shutting down failing schools and reopening them with new staffs. He's still keen on such controversial turnaround strategies. In late August, he announced another competitive grant program that uses $3.5 billion in nondiscretionary funding in an effort to fix the nation's worst schools...
...also clear that the nation's educators are still recovering from the comparatively modest changes that the Bush Administration forced on school districts, particularly the NCLB measure, which so emphasized test scores to the exclusion of other educational goals that many experts now regard it as a failure. NCLB has become, in Duncan's estimation, such a "toxic" brand that his Education Department recently tore down the faux red schoolhouse emblazoned with the law's name that sat outside its main entrance in downtown Washington. Duncan will be instrumental in rewriting NCLB, starting with the name. "We'll probably...
...economy of worker cooperatives may seem utopian, and the notion of using the tools of modern finance to do so absurd. But Bloom and his mentor at Lazard, Eugene Keilin, helped prove it possible—and did so with no less than the largest airline in the nation: United...